When ‘Game of Thrones’ Season 8 is Likely to Premiere

It seems like an eternity passed as we waited for the seventh season of Game of Thrones to finally air, and just like that, we're seven episodes and a Littlefinger down. Winter is here, but how long will HBO make us wait to witness the Army of the Dead descend upon Westeros in the eighth and final season of GoT? Let's discuss.

Historically, HBO released new seasons of GoT in the springtime. Season seven, however, was the first season to premiere in the summer because the production schedule required adjusting to capture the many winter scenes (duh, winter is coming). Because of the season seven delay and because nature chooses to do whatever it damn well pleases, the ETA of the final season isn't exactly clear.

Westeros whiz kids David Benioff and Dan Weiss are hard at work writing season eight, which means it could potentially drop as early as next summer or...as late as 2019. That’s according to HBO programming president Casey Bloys, who hinted during an interview with Entertainment Weekly in June that the final season of the hit show might be pushed back all the way to 2019. We haven’t been this upset since Hodor had to, um, hold the door.

Thankfully, there is some good news. Sound designer Paula Fairfield shared at the first annual Con of Thrones convention that the production team is considering making the six final GoT episodes—wait for it—movie-length!

We may be forced to wait two full winters to see how the Jon Aegon and Dany ship plays out, but at least we'll have half a dozen episodes the length of Drogon's tail to indulge in when the time finally comes. Here's hoping season eight is worth the wait...